Something Unreal
by vanillasnowflakes
Summary: Jamie promised he would never forget the boy with the snow-white hair. Now, years later, and with a master as dark as night, Jamie only has one word for his old friend, "Who are you?"
1. Death

_Hi! So this chapter's kind of short, but the other's will be longer, hopefully. R&R if you'd like. Hope you __enjoy!_

_Something Unreal_

x

When he passes, he doesn't feel the air leaving his lungs, or the life draining out of him. No, it happens in a flash. Warmth flashes across his face, bathing him in a dreadful heat. The flames spread across the floor, licking the walls and at his feet. He pulls back into the corner, runs over the safety instructions the fireman have taught him in every single fire-safety school day of his life, and then tries to pry open the window above him.

Outside, the world is cast in an unforgiving white. The snow had stopped falling early that morning, sticking to the roads and trees; making sidewalks slippery, and car wheels turn on dimes. He hadn't even stepped out this morning, too many papers, too much to write, to do. When was the last time he'd felt slush drip between his fingers, or the fresh shock of a snowball to the back?

Smoke churned in his throat, and Jamie coughs, trying to rid his mouth of the foul taste. The sill doesn't come up easily, it's stuck, and Jamie curses, because now couldn't have been a worse time. He tries again, tugging even harder, until his fingers turn white and the muscles ripple in his arms, and for once he scolds himself for not trying harder during practice, for not pushing his limits, because maybe then he could've opened that window. Maybe the outcome would've been a little different.

But it's not, and he doesn't get the window open. Jamie lowers himself back to his knees and arches his back. Bile starts in the back of his throat, and he tries to push it back down. He tries to yell, something, anything at all, but he can't get out a word. His eyes have gone foggy with a mix of smog and tears. He rakes at his face with balled fists, but that just makes them sting more. Sweat trickles down his forehead, matting his hair. His legs weaken beneath him, and he's can't feel them. There's nothing below him, just these limbs that he can't feel, this lifeless pair of flesh. He falls to his side, barely making a sound as he does so. His body hurts so much, and there's this pain, this searing pain, he can't seem to escape.

His eyes close last. It's not slow like in the movies. He doesn't take in the world, in his one last breathless glimpse. No, he can barely see anything at all. It's like falling asleep really, or maybe passing out. He's not sure. Thoughts don't make much sense anymore. He blinks and he's gone.


	2. New Moon

_Thank you so much for your feedback and follows, I appreciate it so much. _

_x_

Jack used to laugh at the way her body moved when she heard new information (involving teeth, of course). Her head would snap back one way, while her arms would go another, like some kind of dog trying to find the source of a scent. She still smiled at the memory; she missed him, his company, and that of the others she had come to call her friends, her family.

"Molar," she murmured, returning to her usual posture. She bobbed her head at the closest of the little bird-like fairies and sent it on its way, quarter held tightly in little fists.

The night had been a rather busy one she had to admit, not that most weren't, seeing as she had millions of children to look after. But tonight was different. Everywhere she looked there was a child, big and small, short and very, very tall, had lost their teeth. Her head twitched, her shoulders itched and every part of her body told her to move, _move_.

"I got this one," she called out to a small incoming group of fairies. They nodded at their leader, small smiles slipping across their faces. Excitement flickered across Tooth's face at this new information. It stirred in her body, swelling up her heart, her whole being. "First tooth," she whispered, as if saying the words too loud would snatch them away from her. Her fingers gave a quick flutter and she was off, her body diving and sweeping across the darkened sky.

This tooth was far, a good hour-long flight at least (and that was only for an immortal being). But these tingles that went through her limbs, vibrating her body, making her feel so alive, so _believed in_, made the trip worth it.

She circled the small city once, twice, her eyes marveling at the bright lights below, blinking on and off, and oh, so many colors.

"Okay, calm down girl," she smiled to herself. She needed to breath, to access the situation. No need to rush in, and scare off any potential believers. Okay, slowly her body stilled, her eyes closed, and her wings slowed to a soft beat, _thump, thump-thump. _

She pictured the child, a small, very young child. She was held tightly in her mother's arms, which would make retrieving the tooth harder, but she, as the guardian of memories, had conquered worse. Still, there was something strange about this picture. Colors seeped into her vision, reds and yellows. Bright, bright flashes of color, almost burning to the eye. The mother was panicking, holding the child closer and closer, tears racing down her face in steady pools. Usually Tooth could only see the child in her visions, those who believed. But this mother, wanted no- needed a miracle and she believed so strongly in anything, anything at all that could save her.

And it's then, that Tooth realizes, she isn't retrieving her tooth. She isn't leaving a quarter tonight for that baby, for her very first tooth (a rather special day in Tooth's book).

"There." The word comes out low and dead. The sound surprised even Tooth herself.

She watched the smoke billow from below at the far edge of the city. The lights, oh the lights she found so pretty, they're flashing with loud whining noises. Tooth pulls her hands to her ears and tries to block it out. "First tooth, she mumbles, "First tooth." As if that could change the circumstances.

_x_

He's tired when he wakes up. His body is sore in every spot and place, the back of his mouth is dry; he wonders, _have I've been sick? _He remembers being sick, the feeling of a fever on his forehead, his body drenched in a sticky sweat. There's faceless people at the edge of these memories, bringing him soup, telling him stories. Like stick figures almost, they have the usual human garb that he remembers, but the circle that resembles their head is bare, waiting for someone to fill in with crayon. Jamie rolls over despite the sharp paint that jolts in his back. The area around him is dark, almost too opaque for him to see his hand in front of his face. Small pieces of something lay around him, too covered in this deep black dust for him to figure what they are, or what they may be.

He lifts his head to the sky, searches for the stars, the moon, but sees nothing other than a blank slate of ongoing darkness.

"It's a new moon," he mutters. Still his eyes scrape the sky, waiting for the planet to pop out. He doesn't know why he's looking. But there's something familiar, something comforting about it that makes him search. _Do you ever forget the moon when the sun comes up? _He knows its there, watching him. But he wants it now, out in the open, where he can see it. He wants some comfort, some certainty in this mix of confusion and feelings turning inside of him.

"What's going on?" he asks, his voice quiet, no higher than the softest whisper, "Where am I? Wh-who _am _I?"

The word comes quickly, forming in his mind one letter at a time, as if it were being written out by a tired hand.

Jamie shakes his head, not agreeing with this voice (formed out of insanity or loneliness, he doesn't know), not understanding what it wants him to do. "Go where? Find who?"

The word again. It comes faster this time. Familiar, but not, at the same time.

Jamie pulls his legs to him and wraps his long arms around them. He doesn't understand and can't form the words to express this feeling inside of him. Empty. He feels so empty. But what can these, whatever the voice inside his head called them do? How can they fix him?

He wasn't a car or a broken toy; he didn't need a tune up. He needed answers and truth and understanding. Jamie ran his fingers across the charred ground, making pictures in the dust; stick figures. A woman, a man, a girl and a boy. Only one of them had a face.

"Okay, where can I find these _guardians_?"


	3. Flashlight

_Thank you again for all the new follows and faves, and my new review. You're all so sweet ;-; Glad to see you're enjoying! I'm trying to make this longer, I will get there I promise. This chapter was fun to write though it's kind of full of angst. Won't say more than that! Onwards!_

_x_

Jamie's not moving when the sun begins to rise. No, he's rooted to one single spot, staring down. He moves a foot, then the other and watches as it makes shapes in the grass below. The blades, green and healthy only moments ago, weaken at the slightest touch. They burn before his eyes, turning black and crumbling. There's no fire though, no rush of flame. But he feels the warmth. It spreads through his body, wrapping around his chest, his throat, suffocating him. He smells the smoke and sees the bright orange and yellows where there are none.

"Wha?" the world's spinning, going faster and faster around him and never stopping. His body feels lifeless and limp. And everything hits him, a bunch of thoughts and feelings and memories, as if they're all trying to enter him at once.

Jamie falls to his knees and leans his head against the cool ground. He means to calm himself, but he should've expected it, should've known. It burns beneath him, creating a dark spot of soil and dead earth beneath him.

"What's going on?" he murmurs, listening to the earth. There's no sound, no movement. He wonders how far the heat spreads, how deep it burns.

How much, who and what, he's just killed.

_x_

Jack promised a long time ago, that there was no need to look beneath beds anymore. And for the first couple of nights, Sophie believed him. She didn't ask her father to come tuck her in, didn't falter or whine as he flipped off the light with a surprised look on his face. She even thought about taking out the batteries of the flashlight she kept hidden beneath her pillow.

And he was right for a long while. Sophie dreamt elaborate things, which Jack, from his windowsill, (or sometimes Jamie, if he were still up), would watch dance above her head while she slept. Usually she dreamt of Bunny, a tall creature that rose from the golden sand and let Sophie ride on his back and sit in Santa's sleigh. Childish dreams, her parents would think when she told them the next morning, but they loved hearing her talk about them. Her face would grow excited, her cheeks red as her words slurred together and she tried to fit every last word in one breath. That was how it went for a while until Jamie left.

Sophie was a strange child, they said. Neither her parents nor her brother could pull her from the elaborate fantasies she made for herself and for others. Those outside the family and even Jamie's closest friends, distanced themselves from the little girl as they too, stopped believing.

It was, years later, as Jamie pulled the last of his laundry from the drawers, a long paired of shredded-knee jeans and a faded Tee, that she finally realized something quite unsettling.

Jamie had grown up.

"Are you ready to play _Jack Frost_ today Jamie?" she asked, her words coming out slowly, careful. Her usual chipper tone as dispersed the moment she saw the look on his face, the tired eyes and the worn hollow cheeks, "It's the first day with snow." She pointed out the single bedroom window to emphasize her point. Thick drifts floated down from the sky and stuck to whatever it could touch. It was piling up fast, and she was desperate to get out and catch snowflakes before it stopped.

"Not now Sophie," he replied, not even bothering to look up at her. He folded the jeans and laid them gently in the large cardboard box beside his bed. The sheets had been stripped clean off of it, and only an old quilt covered the mattress.

"Packing?" she asked, "_Already?_" her eyes widen at the messy scrawl on the box that spelled out his newest destination, _College. _"It's only the beginning of December."

"Mom said to pack up the summer clothes for September." In went the T-shirt with a basketball swoop, "Two points!"

"But what about your bed? There's still a lot of months before September. You'll need sheets."

Jamie shrugged, "I dunno. I can't find 'em. Have you seen them?"

"No." Oh wait, yes she had. She pulled them off this morning for Jamie to use as his Boogeyman cape. How could she have forgotten? She didn't mention it though. Jamie quite seem to be in the Jack Frost kind of mood.

"Whatever."

Jamie had changed drastically since that night. Sophie couldn't remember much from it; she'd only been about three at the time. But Jamie could. He used to paint dramatic pictures for her of the adventure (metaphorically of course, Jamie could draw to save his life). He told her stories of Pitch Black and his horses coated his dark dust and Jack Frost, oh Jack Frost, with hair as white as his snow, and bright blue eyes. How the two had battled one another in a fight of frost and fear.

Jack was his hero, or at least, he used to be.

The boy she remembered from the stories, short and with a light brush of chestnut hair had grown tall, so tall she had to bend her neck back to look at him. His eyes had become darker, less welcoming and his hair was long and messy as ever. The sentences he spoke were shorter with each passing year, whereas Sophie's grew even longer with each new word she had learned. He barely spoke unless spoken to and even then, responded with a one-letter answer of yes, no, or okay. Mostly though, it was just, 'whatever.'

They never did play Jack Frost that day.

And Sophie didn't get to taste snowflakes once that winter.

That had been months ago, almost a full year to the day. Sophie curled up beneath her covers and felt for her flashlight. Usually she calmed the instant she felt the cool metal beneath her fingertips, but no, it didn't happen tonight. There was a piece of Sophie missing. It was far, far away from her, in some college miles away from where she was now. She clutched the flashlight to her chest and flicked on the switch. It buzzed to life for a moment, casting a dim light across her face, but blinked out not a even a moment after.

Sophie knocked the flashlight against her hand, but it refused to turn back on.

She leaned back into her pillow and sighed. She could call for her father, but he'd give her the look he always gave her every night since Jamie left.

_You're too old to believe in monsters, Sophie. There's nothing there and you know it._

The room beside hers never felt so empty.


End file.
